One of the most persistent misunderstandings in Scripture is the belief that law and faith were meant to coexist indefinitely. Many assume that the gospel merely softened the law, improved it, or made it achievable through grace. Yet the New Testament presents something far more radical. God did not reconcile law and faith. He separated them.
What Scripture reveals is not a partnership but a divorce.
This separation was not accidental, temporary, or disciplinary. It was intentional, final, and necessary for salvation itself. As long as law and faith remained joined, neither could fulfill its purpose. The law could diagnose sin but not heal it. Faith could give life but could not operate while bound to condemnation.
Christ came not to negotiate peace between them but to end the union altogether.
The Law’s Sacred Limitation
The law was holy, just, and good. Scripture never speaks of it as evil. Yet holiness does not equal life. Paul states the limitation plainly. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Galatians 3:21).
The law could define righteousness but could not produce it. It could reveal sin but could not remove it. It could restrain behavior but could not transform nature. Its power was diagnostic, not generative.
This limitation was not a failure in design. It was the design. The law was given to expose humanity’s condition and preserve the promise until the Seed should come. It functioned as a guardian, not a redeemer. Its authority depended entirely on distance from fulfillment.
Once fulfillment arrived, the law’s role necessarily ended.
Faith and Law Cannot Share Authority
Paul’s language concerning law and faith is not cooperative. It is confrontational. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21).
Scripture does not allow a blended system. The presence of law nullifies grace. The presence of grace renders law unnecessary as a means of righteousness. “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace” (Romans 11:6).
This is why Paul describes the law as binding only as long as a person lives under its jurisdiction. Using marriage imagery, he explains that death alone dissolves legal authority. “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ” (Romans 7:4).
Death ended the marriage. Resurrection introduced a new union.
The Cross as the Legal Separation
The cross did not merely forgive sin. It executed a covenant. Christ bore the curse of the law, not to rehabilitate it, but to exhaust its claims. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).
Once the curse was borne fully, the law had nothing left to demand. Its jurisdiction ended at the grave. Christ’s resurrection did not revive the law. It inaugurated an entirely new mode of relationship with God.
This is why the New Covenant is not described as law revised but as life imparted. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Freedom did not come from better obedience but from a different source of righteousness altogether.
Faith does not improve the law. Faith replaces it as the means of union with God.
Why God Enforced the Separation in History
Theological separation alone was not sufficient. As long as the Old Covenant system continued visibly, humanity would attempt to return to it. The heart gravitates toward systems it can measure, manage, and perform.
This is why God did not merely declare the law fulfilled. He dismantled its operating structure. The destruction of the temple in AD 70 was the historical enforcement of a spiritual reality. Without priesthood, altar, or sacrifice, law could no longer masquerade as a viable path to righteousness.
Hebrews speaks with urgency precisely because this separation was approaching. “He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9). Establishment required removal. Coexistence was never an option.
God did not destroy the temple because faith was weak. He destroyed it because faith had arrived.
The New Covenant Operates on an Entirely Different Basis
Under law, obedience was demanded to secure blessing. Under faith, blessing is given to produce obedience. Under law, righteousness was pursued externally. Under faith, righteousness is received internally through union with Christ.
This is why the New Covenant is described as better, not stricter. “I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them” (Hebrews 10:16). What the law engraved on stone, Christ engraves in living hearts by the Spirit.
The believer does not relate to God as a lawkeeper seeking approval but as a son or daughter sharing Christ’s righteousness. Faith does not lower God’s standard. It fulfills it by uniting the believer to the One who met it perfectly.
The Danger of Reuniting What God Divorced
Every attempt to blend law and faith produces either pride or despair. Pride for those who believe they succeed. Despair for those who know they do not. Both outcomes deny the sufficiency of Christ.
Paul’s warning is severe. “Ye are fallen from grace” is not spoken to unbelievers but to those attempting to add law back into faith (Galatians 5:4). To return to law is not spiritual maturity. It is regression.
God does not heal this mixture gradually. He forbids it entirely.
Christ Is the Only Covenant That Remains
The Great Divorce was not the end of relationship but the beginning of a better one. Law and faith were separated so that faith could be joined fully to Christ. The believer is not under law, not because law was flawed, but because Christ is complete.
What remains is not moral chaos but perfected union. The law demanded righteousness. Christ supplies it. The law condemned sin. Christ removed it. The law stood at a distance. Christ indwells.
God did not repair the old marriage.
He ended it.
So that faith could belong to Christ alone.
